Jurors began watching the two-hour recorded interview, in which B communicated through broken English but was aided at times by an interpreter, on Friday afternoon. It concluded this morning, as the second and likely final week of the High Court at Auckland trial began. <\/p>\n
B is on trial beside friends O and S, who also have name suppression.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors have alleged the trio made a joint plan to rape the 19-year-old complainant after she got into a van with the men outside the K Rd nightclub. She either explicitly didn\u2019t consent to sex with the men or was too intoxicated to have given consent, the Crown said during last week\u2019s opening address. <\/p>\n
The woman, in her own recorded police interview three days before B\u2019s arrest, sobbed as she recalled emerging from a blackout to find one of the men on top of her in the middle of intercourse. <\/p>\n
Nightclub expulsion<\/p>\n
B told police he had gone into Auckland\u2019s City Centre around 6 or 7pm on New Year\u2019s Eve and started drinking in a car park hours before arriving at the club. The woman had also started drinking hours earlier with friends from the backpacker\u2019s lodge where they were staying. <\/p>\n
When the two later met on the dancefloor, they did kiss consentually, prosecutors acknowledged. The woman said she had no memory of it but acknowledged CCTV footage showed her doing so. <\/p>\n
B said security at the club had kicked them out because they were kissing and groping too much. <\/p>\n
Family Bar has been in operation on Auckland’s Karangahape Rd for over 20 years. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n
\u201cSo my friend brought the car to us, drove to where we were standing,\u201d he recalled. \u201cThen we did some kissing in the car. I cannot recall or remember where we were heading to.\u201d<\/p>\n
He later recalled dropping off the woman somewhere then going back to a car park where they had been drinking with friends prior to the nightclub. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I woke up, I was at home. I don\u2019t remember,\u201d he said, adding that it was about 2pm on New Year\u2019s Day. <\/p>\n
But CCTV tracked down by police showed the van with the three defendants and the woman driving 18 minutes away from the club to an empty carpark behind an industrial building in Avondale. Jurors watched the video several more times on Friday, including zoomed-in and enhanced versions. <\/p>\n
Prosecutors allege the video shows all three men taking turns raping the woman, with B seen circling around the vehicle in partial states of undress before trading places with the driver so he could take a turn.<\/p>\n
The woman was later dropped outside her backpacker\u2019s lodge, with prosecutors suggesting she was pushed out of the vehicle in a final act of cruelty. <\/p>\n
\u2018Something\u2019s not right\u2019<\/p>\n
Gisella Perez, who was also staying at the hostel, recalled to jurors via an audio-video feed from Argentina how she saw the van stopped next to the kerb as she was returning from a work shift that morning. <\/p>\n
\u201cI saw a very young girl getting off abruptly,\u201d she said through a Spanish interpreter. \u201cShe was wearing a tight black dress and she looked quite sweaty and her hair was messy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The witness recalled making eye contact with a man inside the vehicle. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very intense, and I felt at that time danger,\u201d she said. \u201cI felt something\u2019s not quite right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prosecutor Fiona Culliney asked her to elaborate on what she meant by the woman leaving the van \u201cabruptly\u201d. <\/p>\n
Crown prosecutor Fiona Culliney. Photo \/ Brett Phibbs<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I saw wasn\u2019t a friendly farewell,\u201d she explained. \u201cIt was like someone trying to get rid of her, and like she wanted to come into the hostel really quick.\u201d<\/p>\n
The woman seemed intoxicated, unable to walk well, she recalled.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn her face, you could see tiredness and stress and confusion maybe,\u201d Perez said.<\/p>\n
\u2018You don\u2019t know what they did\u2019<\/p>\n
Fellow German backpackers Nellie Braunlich and Max Doerer recalled what happened next. Doer said the woman, at one point shortly after her return to the hostel, began hyperventilating and looking as if she was about to black out. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe was shaking and she was screaming that she can\u2019t do it anymore,\u201d he said. \u201cShe tried getting up and running into the road, and she got into the first lane of the road … She was trying to get run over by a car.\u201d<\/p>\n
Braunlich, who had accompanied the woman to Family Bar before the two lost each other in the crowd, returned to the hostel shortly after her friend. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t know what they did to me,\u201d she recalled her friend saying repeatedly, distraught and not wanting to be touched. <\/p>\n
In a conversation with a 111 operator a short time later, Braunlich explained what the complainant had told her: That multiple people had raped her in a car then pushed her out afterwards. <\/p>\n
Dr Maya Steeper, a sexual assault forensic physician, examined the complainant later that day. She observed bruises on the woman\u2019s neck and lip and skinned knees. The teen seemed traumatised, the doctor noted. <\/p>\n
A gynaecological exam had to be cut short, the doctor said, because of the amount of swelling and pain the complainant was experiencing. Even for sexual assault exams, that\u2019s \u201cvery uncommon\u201d, she explained to jurors. <\/p>\n
Swabs she took during the exam were later tested for DNA, tracing back to B and co-defendant O. <\/p>\n
\u2018She wanted me too much\u2019<\/p>\n
In the police interview, Detective Simon Reid showed B CCTV stills from inside the nightclub. B initially said he didn\u2019t remember the woman\u2019s face \u2013 just her black dress \u2013 but acknowledged the stills looked familiar. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo this is my first time I drank,\u201d he repeated. \u201cThis is my first time I went to nightclub. And this is my first time I met a girl in nightclub. So I with her. Only with one person. I\u2019m not like I\u2019m going around the club. Like, just saying I\u2019m not like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The detective asked bluntly if the two had sex. <\/p>\n
\u201cHave sex? Mm, I don\u2019t think. I don\u2019t remember,\u201d he replied. \u201cWe had a kissing. Yeah, I just remember we did kissing, hugging … I don\u2019t think so.\u201d<\/p>\n
Detective Reid then asked B to explain his understanding of \u201cconsent\u201d. The defendant requested to answer in his first language. <\/p>\n
\u201cTo my understanding, when a girl approaches you, touches you, trying to kiss you, touches all of your body, and that means to me that is a sign of consent by her,\u201d he said through the translator. <\/p>\n
Turning back to English, he added: \u201cIf she wanted to stop me, I\u2019m going to not touching her, really. I\u2019m not going to kissing her and touching. But, I remember, she wanted to kiss me too much. And she wanted to touch me. And she wanted I touch her. I remember this. I don\u2019t remember that she like, \u2018Don\u2019t do it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
When the detective indicated he was ready to finish the two-hour interview, the defendant returned to the question of consent. <\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to know what mistake \u2013 have I done it wrong, something wrong here?\u201d he asked through the interpreter. \u201cBecause she wanted it the same time that I was.<\/p>\n
\u201c… I\u2019m not that guy to rape someone.\u201d <\/p>\n
The trial continues before Justice Mathew Downs and the jury. <\/p>\n